Goodbye Warframe – after 1900 hours

I have been playing Warframe for over 3 years. I started in October 2015 and played ever since. I took breaks – long and short – but always found my way back into the game. But I guess this time it is a final goodbye for me. Fortuna and the Profit Taker update finally drove me away.

Warframe has always been a game about grind. You grind for resources, warframe parts, weapon parts and mods. New things to grind for were introduced gradually for 5 years until Plains of Eidolon hit. Gradual introduction meant that existing players always had something new to do without feeling robbed of time already invested in farming older items or resources.

Content slow downs were always part of Warframe and expected accepted. Some resources drop in extremely low quantities, others appear only occasionally as rewards and one even decayed. But it never felt too much of a hassle because one or two resources were still a fair way to cope with.

All resources prior to Plains of Eidolon and Fortuna

This pacing of new resources was replaced by the first large scale map: Plains of Eidolon. It introduced 40+ new resources that were exclusive to this one map. At that time this meant an overnight resource increase of over 100% in Warframe. Plains of Eidolon also introduced mining, fishing and operator oriented boss fights.

Not only were space ninjas now required to farm a single repetitive map over and over again. They were also forced to do things that had nothing to do with power fantasy of being a warframe. Fishing meant standing at one spot and mining meant finding random spot that gave random resources.

Resources that were added with Plains of Eidolon more than doubled resources in the game.

This was the first time I was turned off completely. But I forced myself through this content to get some of the modular new melee weapons. But it is a place I do not like to visit anymore. It is just a boring grind treadmill that makes not particular good use of different warframe skills. It all boils down to high-level sniper weapons for bounties, invisible warframes for fishing & mining and 4 meta warframes and 2 different operator amps for Eidolon hunt. There is no challenge in any of that. The real challenge is to find motivation to do this low level content time and time again.

This year’s introduction of Fortuna drove the concept from Plains of Eidolon even further. Orb Vallis is larger than Plains of Eidolon with a Corpus paintjob. We have again 50+ new resources that are exclusive to Orb Vallis. We have fishing of different fish, mining of different resources, wild life conservation and hover board trick driving. Again things that have nothing to do with the power fantasy of being a space ninja. On top of that we got showered with nearly 40 new mods, 2 new warframes and 20+ arcanes.

Even more new resources with the recent updates. That makes more than trippling in 18 months.

I am well aware that it seems odd that I dislike new content. But for the past 18 months new content for the game was only about quantity and grind slow down and no longer about quality.

Within 18 months resources to build items more than trippled. Every update that introduces 50 resources on top of 100 existing resources, tons mods on top of 800 mods, tons of arcanes on top of 100 arcanes or yet another modular weapon type on top of 400 already mostly overkill riven infused weapons makes the game even more confusing for new players than it already is. Retention rate in Warframe was always very high but it gets worse the more clutter gets thrown into the game. The only real gameplay challenge of the past 18 months has been to keep track of everything that is throw at the player.

Warframe already has lots of old content that is in dire need of a refresh. We have game modes nobody plays unless one needs to farm resources or warframe parts only available there. We have so many places that require meta squads and separate mostly outdated youtube tutorials that it takes ever longer times to find a suitable 4 player squad. And with so much content in the game left unexplained watching videos and reading tutorials becomes a full time job for every aspiring tenno.

What Warframe lacks is a streamlined economy, quality over quantity updates and bold content stripping. But from what I have seen over the past 3 years Warframe developement will not change. Warframe will see even more new resources and even more stuff that has nothing to do with the power fantasy of being a space ninja. On top of that none of the new stuff will be explained properly ingame. And because of constant changes content creator videos outdate so fast that new players find their content misrepresenting of what they experience ingame.

I do not believe that change will happen. The reason for this is the modus operandi of Digital Extremes – the way how Digital Extremes works: Never remove old stuff, throw in more stuff and outsource marketing and tutorials to Warframe partners.

For me personally these are simple facts. That leaves me sad and at the end of my patience. I can no longer advise playing Warframe to my peers. The learning curve is too steep and the grind too punishing for the normal 10-12 hours per week gamer. That leaves the game that always had a strong adult player base to those that either play for a living or to students with lots of spare time.

I had great times with Warframe and met great people over the years. Warframe helped me to experiment with a youtube channel for 2 years. I am very grateful for that. Warframe will always have a very special place in heart. I have two warframe statues and a number of T-shirts as a constant reminder of that. And never before in my nearly 30 years of gaming did I ❤️ playing a game the way I loved playing Warframe. But the current direction of the game means for me to to move on.

It has been an honor, tenno.

Goodbye everyone!

PS: Two more guide videos for my youtube channel are almost finished. They will go up after the holidays.

PPS: Yes, those will be the last videos for that channel but I will answering community questions for at least another 6 months.

20 years of coding and working as software engineer but I am still eager to learn more. I am very passionate when it comes to open source, Linux and Java. But I made my peace with Windows long ago to fully enjoy my PC gaming hobby. I have a soft spot for 90s electronic music and Babylon 5. In the evenings you will find me roaming the endless space in Warframe (IGN k05h).